Do you foresee an American world champion within the next 5 years?

[JB Cases]

I hate to see it happen, but 5 yrs from now there might not even be a world championship tourney. These oil tycoons arent making money like in the past to throw away money with sponsorship.

You might be right but they still have more money than god. Putting on a pool tournament equates to what falls out of their pockets when they stumble home after another party.

 

[the Professor]

I may catch shrapnel for this view but what the heck.....

The WPA 9-ball title is the big boy on the block, the crown jewel of pool as others have put it and they are correct.
Will Shane or another American ever win it?
Like Spartan stated Shane's odds are extremely slim of making it back to the finals after appearing in them last year.

For Shane and the rest of American pool, I feel the distraction of Chinese 8-ball, bar box 7-footer table events and 1-pocket will be more of a hurdle as the years go by. I see much of Europe and Asia all playing big tables, and never touching 1-pocket. Is it any wonder they are so focused and strong when it comes to 9-ball world championships?

I think it is easy to be seen as "focused and strong when it comes to the 9-ball world championships"… when you have 90% of the field. That is really a huge advantage. We (US) only had three players last year (I believe). We had a 2nd place and 2 others in the top 32. If we had sent 20 players, I feel pretty sure we would have had several others in the top 32 ready to make a run deeper into the title. And, I'm not saying this is any negative way, but we have several players that play better than Hunter we could have sent if they had the funds/motivation.

I said that to say, I think we have more problems with our participation than our talent and choice of games.

 

[Blue Jam]

And most of them are accustomed to traveling across many time zones.

Ok, must be a uniquely American problem then.

All those local winners, from thousands of miles away....

 

[sjm]

Yep although I'm would not mind seeing Morra win one since I lived there for ten yrs and we have talked numeras times ,, other than him and Bergs feud , I think him and Sky would do themselves well following his path to success

1

Yup, John has a big game and deserved to win the DCC 9-ball in 2014 but for one of the worst rolls I've ever seen. Double hill in the final vs SVB, a perfectly played kick-safe by John sent the object ball into the side pocket at a highly unlikely angle and it cost John the match. He has proven he's got what it takes to win something big and I'd love to see him snap it off one of the biggest events.